Published: July 4, 2025
Day Four in Fai.
Even after waking up this morning, the mystery of the icicle lance remained unsolved.
That said, there was an even more pressing issue this morning.
That issue was hunger...
Since my reincarnation, I had only been eating dried meat.
And it felt like I was only eating it for lunch.
Ryo was not particularly a big eater, but he was a healthy nineteen-year-old.
If he ate little, he would feel hungry.
What face would I have to show Michael (alias) if I ended up starving to death despite him providing two months' worth of food?
First, to the storage room.
The inside of the door was as cold as a freezer. Perhaps because the inner walls were made of ice.
He was probably using water attribute magic... but the ice Ryo created began to melt once he stopped supplying magical power.
However, the ice on the walls of this storage room showed no signs of melting whatsoever.
Was Michael’s magical power reaching this far?
Or was it embodying the heights of the water attribute that Ryo had yet to see?
Either way, it was intriguing.
I would eventually want to solve this mystery... but first, I needed to satisfy my hunger!
I could eat the dried meat right away, but by the fourth day of being transferred, I craved something different.
Yes, properly grilled meat!
Inside the storage room, there were frozen meats of beasts and monsters.
Rabbits, wild boars, and something resembling chicken... and there were also pieces that seemed to have been butchered.
"This is meat that has been butchered separately, right...? I think Michael (alias) prepared this. In other words, it means that if I butcher it like this, I can get meat for eating. As expected of Michael (alias), a capable man."
Grateful for that preparation, I picked up two pieces of what seemed to be rabbit thigh meat.
"Both are frozen solid, but will they melt? It would be great if they melted just by taking them out of the storage room..."
Holding the meat in both hands, Ryo exited the storage room.
Then he placed the meat into a wooden bucket. The bucket was quite useful!
The two pieces of meat were illuminated by the rising sun.
However, they showed no sign of melting whatsoever.
"This means, as a water attribute mage, I have to thaw it myself..."
I held my right hand over one of the frozen pieces of meat and visualized it in my mind.
Imagining separating the water molecules that were bonding the ice covering the meat.
"Huh? Something is repelling me."
The bonding between the water molecules wouldn't come loose.
And the fact that it wouldn't come loose clearly fed back into Ryo's mind.
"Is it because this is ice I didn’t make myself? It might be repelling me because it's ice made by Michael."
But there was no law that said I should give up because of that.
I couldn't live without eating.
Besides, since it was prepared by Michael (alias), there was no way it couldn't be thawed and made edible.
Yes, because Michael was a capable man. Therefore, it should be possible to thaw it!
"I'll take my time."
Instead of melting everything at once, I focused on just one spot. Concentrating my magical power there, I aimed to separate the bonds of the molecules.
Next, I moved to the bonds next to it. Then to the next one. And the next one...
From the spots where the bonds came loose, the ice turned into water.
Finally, after about 15 minutes, one rabbit thigh was thawed.
Even after taking that much time, the other frozen piece remained sitting there without showing any signs of melting.
"Michael's magic is amazing. I'll leave the frozen one as it is and try an experiment. I wonder what will happen if I grill it while it's still Michael's ice?"
I prepared firewood and black palm fronds in the yard.
Then I brought some salt from the kitchen, which seemed to have been prepared by Michael (alias).
By the way, the only seasoning that Michael (alias) had prepared was a large amount of salt.
I skewered the thawed thigh meat on a stick and sprinkled salt on it.
Then, I made my usual ice lens.
Maybe because I had made it several times before, it used to take me about 15 minutes just to freeze water, but now I could create the ice lens in about two minutes directly.